The Tech
by spiderfire
Summary: Karl Schmidt, soon to be graduating from college, gets a shot at an internship that will make his career. It is a unique chance to use his skills in electrical engineering and neurobiology. Of course he jumps at it. Who wouldn't? It is not until it is much too late that he has second thoughts. Written as a NPT treat.


"Karl! Ah, come in. Sit down."

Karl Schmidt gently closed the door of Professor Karsten's office. The room was cluttered as always. Every horizontal surface was stacked high with haphazard piles of journals in several languages, some of which dated back decades. On his desk, the tower of Neurology that had fallen over the last time he had been in here had been moved to the floor, apparently to use as a stand to spread out several connected sheets of computer paper, covered in pages and pages of handwritten FORTRAN code. Boxes of punch cards, as long as his arm, made an end table to a couch that got used as a bed several nights a week. He moved a stack of Russian electrical engineering journals from one of the rickety chairs the professor kept in his office and sat.

Professor Karsten was his advisor. He was in his fifties, with a head of wild grey hair and a moustache he kept neatly brushed. His students liked to mock the moustache – it was about the only thing about him that was neat. His shirt was never tucked in, he forgot his jacket half the time, and his hair always stuck out in a dozen directions. But the moustache – that was neat. That and his lab bench. His lab bench was spotless.

Karl was in his final year of college, about to graduate with degrees in electrical engineering and biology. Unlike his mentor, everything about him was prim. His shirt was starched and tucked in, he was clean shaven and his hair was neatly trimmed. Despite Professor's Karsten's slovenly ways, he greatly admired the man and his work on the electrical nature of the human nervous system.

"What can I do for you, Professor?" Karl asked.

"Karl, I just had a very interesting call from a friend of mine in Moscow. He is looking for an intern for a project they have."

Karl leaned forward, interested. Despite having top marks, he was concerned he would be sent to some job that did not use his skills, some job better suited a common electrician. His father had been disgraced in the war and he was lucky to have made it this far.

"How's your Russian?" Karsten asked in Russian.

"Passable," Karl replied in kind. "I can work on it."

"Good," Karsten said, switching back to German.

"What is the project?"

"It is a cybernetics project – right up your alley. They need someone to maintain an interface between a living structure and some sort of circuitry."

Karl's eyes widened. "Maintain?" he asked. "Does that mean they got it working to begin with?"

Karsten shrugged. "You know what I know, at this point. I take it you are interested?"

"Absolutely!"

"Great! I'll give Sasha a call and let him know. He will probably want you out there for an interview next week."

Karl grinned. "Thank you, Professor!"

* * *

Karl blinked, trying to keep his eyes in focus as he stared through the microscope, lining up the dendrite with the tiny copper wire and applying a minuscule drop of NG-47 to the ends. There. As he watched, the tendrils of nerve cell began to wrap around the wire. Damned amazing. Every day, every hour of every day, he thanked the stars, god, or whatever it was that had put him in Karsten's lab and that Karsten had gotten him this job.

He flopped back, letting his arms and legs go limp, releasing the tension. After doing thirty-two of these connections over four hours, his head ached and his hands were trembling, but he was done for now.

The rabbit was beginning to twitch, the claws in its cybernetic forepaw partially extending in unison with the flesh one. Before the anesthesia wore off, he quickly stitched up the wound and carried the still sleepy rabbit back to its cage. As he was washing up from the procedure, Aleksander Lukin, the project manager, came into the lab and walked over to the rabbit cage.

Mr. Lukin was nothing like Professor Karsten. Tall, formidable, and intimidating, Lukin was always dressed in an impeccable suit that looked terribly expensive to Karl. His hair was swept back and going grey on the temples and he wore a goatee that was trimmed close to his face. Karl did everything he could to please Lukin, and not just because this job was incredible. When it came down to it, he was more than a little afraid of his new boss.

The rabbit was now fully awake, sitting in the corner. It licked at the join between its flesh and the metal foot, before licking its paws and rubbing the damp paws on its face. The metal paw left a scratch marks across the rabbits nose. Startled, it shied sideways, away from the pain, throwing itself against the rear wall of the cage. It lay there, dazed for a moment.

Lukin looked up as Karl came over. "This is remarkable work."

Karl smiled at the praise. "Thank you, sir."

Lukin looked back at the rabbit. "I think all the pieces are in place." He handed Karl a file that he had been holding under his arm. "Read this. The briefing is at three."

Karl took the file, wondering what it contained.

Lukin turned to leave, but then he paused at the door and looked back. "Welcome to the Winter Soldier project."

* * *

The room where the subject lay was freezing. Literally. Karl could see his breath in the air when he walked in. The man was prone on a gurney, draped with a blue sheet that covered everything except his left shoulder. Karl had no idea it was possible to freeze a person and then thaw and revive them, but that was not his problem. His problem was the open wound in the man's shoulder. Apparently, at some point in the past, near the end of the war, the man (no, the subject…he corrected himself) had had his entire left arm wrenched from its socket. The wound had been cleaned, the torn and necrotic tissue had been trimmed away. He had no idea how the ma… the subject, he corrected himself, had survived long enough to be here, now. He should have bled out from such a wound in minutes, but that was also not his problem.

He pulled up a stool and sat down, flipping magnifiers down over his eyes to study the raw, frozen flesh. Using a probe, he explored the exposed shoulder, partially thawing it with a tiny jet of hot air, as needed. He found the nerves and they looked intact.

When he was done, he left his equipment on a tray and walked out to report. "Should be no problem," he said.

* * *

The subject was waking up. He had completed the operation an hour ago, and he had sat watching as the medical team monitored the subject's vitals. There was a soldier with a gun in the room and he did not know why.

He smiled as the metal fingers started to twitch and he left his perch in the corner to go stand next to the subject. It was exciting to be able to explain to a subject about the strength of the new appendage. The poor rabbits always mauled themselves with it, but a man would be able to understand.

The subject lifted his hands and looked at them, his eyes flicking from the flesh hand to the metal one and back again. Karl watched his face grow baffled. He looked into the confused blue eyes and felt sorry for the man. The man said something in a language Karl did not know. Karl leaned forward, speaking in slow Russian.

"You lost your arm. We replaced it with this cybernetic one." Karl flexed his fist and the man watched intently, copying his actions. Then he said something else in a language Karl did not understand and suddenly….

Afterwards, it was Lukin who told him what happened. He was laying on the floor in the hallway and his throat felt like it had been closed in a vice grip. The back of his head was pounding and he felt like he was going to throw up. Lukin crouched down next to him, angry and loud. "I warned you not to get so close. I warned you! It is dangerous. You got lucky. It could have killed you twice in two seconds – torn your throat out, or smashed you against the wall. You damned fool!"

Laying back, putting his cheek against the cool floor, he groaned. When he closed his eyes, the confused, scared blue eyes of the subject stared back at him. He wondered who the man was. He wondered why the man had attacked him.

* * *

"Again."

The subject was restrained in a chair, leather and metal bands wrapped around his torso. The chair had many instruments around it, but except for the bank Karl used for running diagnostics on the arm, he did not know what any of them did. The subject looked at Karl with wild, untamed, resentful eyes. "No."

With a sigh, Karl stood up. His instructions were clear. Work with the subject on hand-eye coordination drills until he refused. Then leave. Usually an hour or so later, he was brought back to the lab where he found the subject with a blank, expressionless face, having forgotten all the drills they had just worked on. He would to re-teach the exercises to the subject and they would work together for a couple of hours. During that time, the subject's anger steadily grew until the refusal came again.

Karl left, wondering what they did to the man when he was not in the room.

* * *

In retrospect, he had no idea when the dreams started. He'd dream of the subject, laying on the surgical table or restrained in the chair, eyes wide open, staring into the surgical light he used when he was working. "What are you doing?" he'd ask. Or "Who am I?" Or "Can I go home now?"

"Try that," Karl said, closing an access panel on the arm.

The subject looked at him, tensing his forehead and then he nodded. Weeks had gone by and both the subject's coordination and attitude had improved significantly.

Karl retreated behind the bullet-proof glass of the observation room as one of the specialists handed the subject a handgun. Another specialist stood by with a tranq gun held not quite at the ready. Karl flipped on the camera and said into the mike, "Trial 8. Attempted to correct the dextral displacement by adjusting the C5 interface by -0.1." Karl watched as the subject (he congratulated himself on his impartial thinking) lifted the gun and fired. Bang! Bang! Bang! The subject neatly hit each target as they popped out of the floor. On Trial 7, every shot had been a few degrees to the right; this time they were right on. "Calibration complete," he said into the mike.

* * *

Each morning, after the doctor did his checkup and before the specialists took the subject off for training, he ran diagnostics and did maintenance on the subject's arm. The subject was always naked to the waist, sitting in the chair whenever he was there. Most days, the restraints were not used.

At first, he had said, "Good morning," when he entered, but then Lukin had reprimanded him. Now, he kept his eyes down and tried to remember. Subject.

Most of the time, the subject was compliant and passive, staring silently into space as he worked. Karl opened the access panels, oiled the cables, cleaned out any dust or metal filings and checked that the calibration had not drifted. The last few tests involved checking the sensory network and the bio-feedbacks, and he required the subject's cooperation. The subject looked at him intently when he talked, carefully complying with the direction. The subject understood Russian now, and spoke back when he was required.

The subject had only tried to initiate conversation once, saying, "That feels strange. What are you doing?" but Karl did as he was told and ignored him. After that, the subject didn't speak unless he was spoken to and Karl wondered if he had all his faculties.

The drills they ran through – touch each finger with his thumb, pick up small balls and drop them in a cup, toss a ball against a wall and catch it, pick up and stack small cubes, toss a pencil and flip it – became a game. The subject got faster and faster, and he smiled at Karl when he knew he did well. Karl always turned away, trying not to meet the blue eyes that were pleased at his performance and confused or frustrated or sad or angry at Karl's lack of reaction. Eventually, the subject withdrew and they ran through the tests mechanically.

One day, Karl forgot himself. "Nice job!" he said, after a particularly quick set of drills and the subject's face lit up with a broad smile. "Thank you," the subject replied.

Realizing his mistake, Karl quickly turned away, schooling his face back to impartial.

The next day, the subject was hollow-eyed and blank and just as fast as ever.

* * *

The dreams became more vivid as time went by. The subject was seated in the chair. "Why?" he would demand. "Why are you doing this?"

He wanted to explain about his father, about what an incredible opportunity this was, about how much he was learning, but the words would not come out of his mouth.

* * *

Late afternoon he was working in his office, reading the current issue of the Journal de Biophysique Appliqués that Karsten had sent him, when one of the specialists stuck his head in. "Doc," the soldier said, and he bristled because he was not a doctor and he had corrected the meatheads enough, but the specialists continued. "We need you. Now."

He jumped up and followed the specialist down the hall and into the lab.

The subject was standing in the center of the room, surrounded by specialists who were systematically stripping him of his armor. There was blood on the armor, blood on the prosthetic hand, blood on his face, abrasions across his face, contusions on his torso and a wicked looking laceration across his cheek. He looked confused at the activity and his right hand was trembling as he held it out for the specialist to remove its glove. The metal arm hung limply by his side and he could see damage to the upper parts from across the room.

Four specialists stood around him, guns leveled at his head.

The doctor was there and as soon as the armor was off, he took over, gesturing at the chair. Compliant as always, the subject allowed himself to be guided down, ignoring the guns, ignoring what was being done to him. An IV was put in his arm, he was washed off, his injuries were examined and dismissed. Watching the way they handled him made something twist in Karl's stomach. He looked away.

Lukin came in the room, "Mission report," he demanded of the subject.

The subject brought his eyes around to Lukin, terror plainly written across his face.

"Primary target…" The subject closed his eyes, dropping his head. "Primary target…" he started again, "eliminated." He choked out the last word.

"Witnesses?"

The subject closed his human hand into a fist, his face still turned down.

"Look at me, soldier!" Lukin ordered.

Slowly, he brought his head up, meeting Lukin's eyes. "Witnesses?" he demanded again.

"One…and then four."

"Status."

He started to look away again. Lukin grabbed his chin. "Answer me."

"Dead," he finally said. "The strike team took out the child. I…I finished the bodyguards."

Lukin released him roughly. "Unacceptable." He looked over at the doctor.

The doctor shook his head. "The prep programming should have held."

"And yet, it didn't." Disgusted, he turned away. "Wipe it. Start over again. Be ready in 48 hours."

The subject was trembling, eyes wide. Two of the specialists pressed him back and the chair closed around him. He was hyperventilating. For an instant, the subject's eyes met Karl's and Karl felt the fear that was echoing through his body.

Lukin turned and left. The doctor looked at Karl. "Give me half an hour, then the arm is all yours."

When the machine wrapped around the subject's head and his screaming began, Karl could not take it. He fled the room and returned to his office, burying his face in his hands.

* * *

Half an hour later, he returned though he still felt vaguely ill. He did not look at the blank, drooling face that slowly regained its tone as he worked. He focused on the arm, on repairing the damage done by bullets and some sort of blunt trauma. He tried not to think about the people who had been killed by this man, the damage that this arm had done. He tried not to think about the widows and orphans this man had left. He tried not to think about the child who was killed today. Had it been a boy or a girl? He tried not to wonder about this program and what he was doing here. No, he focused on the arm. Solder, drill, weld, rewire, polish. He checked the connections. He checked the nerve interfaces. He was responsible for the arm. What was done with it was not his responsibility. What was done to it was not his responsibility.

It was well past his dinner time when he was done. The man, alert now, was watching him as he activated the arm and closed the final panel. He did not look up. He did not speak. He could not bear to look into the man's face. He held out his hand and touched his thumb to each finger in turn. The subject repeated his motions.

* * *

That night he sat in his spotless apartment with a liter of vodka, and he tried to drown out the sound of the man's screams from his ears. The look of fear that broke to betrayal in his eyes. The pliant submission his trembling body gave them.

* * *

One of the test rabbits was still alive, living in a cage in Karl's office. When he came to work the next morning, he took it out of its cage and settled it on his lap. He petted it and it wriggled against him, kneading his leg with its metal and flesh paws. Lightly, he ran his fingers through its silky white fur.

When it was time to work with the subject, he went and tried to forget that yesterday had happened. An unfamiliar doc was finishing up the physical when he entered the lab. Karl did not look at the subject. He reminded himself how lucky he was to have this job. He reminded himself how much he was learning. Lukin had connections. This job would make his career.

The following day, his judgment was impaired by two nights of a lot of vodka and too little sleep. He spoke to the subject as he worked. "What is going on today?" he asked.

The man spoke, his voice empty, his eyes closed. "I have a mission," he said. "Two men. In public. Lots of witnesses."

"Oh," Karl said, wishing he had not asked. He finished his work in silence.

* * *

He left work early that afternoon, went home and started drinking. At some point, maybe when he was a third of the way through the bottle, two men who had been alive this morning, who had kissed their wives goodbye and gone to work, had died. He pictured their bodies collapsed in a crowd, blood coming from the third eye that bloomed in their forehead. The sound of the gun would have been inaudible over the noise of the conversations. He pictured the screams of those who stood near them, spinning around, looking answers, looking for the shooter, wondering if they were next. He pictured the subject, walking through the shadows, being picked up in a truck, being brought back to the lab, being disarmed, stripped, cleaned up. He pictured Lukin standing over the man, demanding…

In his dreams, he stood in a crowded room. Two men came up to him, each with a bullet hole between the eyes. "Why?" they asked. And then came others. An old man. A fat woman. A blonde child. A dark skinned woman with snow white hair. A handsome man in a fine suit. Each had a bullet hole between the eyes. Each demanded of him, "Why?" The last was the subject, naked to the waist, the metal arm shining. The ice blue eyes drilled into him, angry and confused. "Why?" he demanded.

The next morning, he continued drinking with breakfast. Why? He asked himself. Why was he doing this? Lukin had connections. This was one step on the way to a good job, a job that meant something.

Maybe they used the subject well. Maybe he only killed enemies of the state. Who was he to say? But those eyes, the betrayed, broken eyes... He was not a subject, he was a man.

He went into work, half drunk. He sat with the rabbit in his lap, staring blankly at the half read issue of Transistor on his desk. Half an hour later Lukin showed up at his door, shoving it open. "What are you doing, Karl?"

Karl looked up and shook his head. "I can't do this anymore, Mr. Lukin."

Lukin sighed. "I was afraid you were going to say that." Lukin walked into the room and Karl suddenly felt like he was an intruder in his own office. Lukin sat on one of the chairs by the desk and idly picking up a framed picture Karl kept of his parents. "You were an asset to this program, Karl. You did good work." He shook his head and stood. "Pity you decided to grow a conscious."

He walked back towards the door and gestured into the hall. Two specialists came in, guns leveled. "I'll have to figure out something to tell Karsten."

Lukin walked out. Karl closed his eyes, clinging to the rabbit in his lap, waiting for the inevitable.


End file.
